


the price of immortality

by hoywfiction



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Heartbreak, Immortality Angst, M/M, Magnus Bane-centric, Malec, magnus is trying his best to get his life together, my poor baby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 01:12:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10478727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoywfiction/pseuds/hoywfiction
Summary: It's been one-hundred and fifteen years since everyone died, and Magnus's method of coping is talking to dirt in a box and lots of alcohol.





	

“Oh Raphael… I’d hoped that, when they all died away, I’d at least have you.” The warlock sat in what he currently considered home, a nice little place in Tokyo, speaking to a decorative box filled with nothing but dirt on his coffee table. Swirling his olive-skewer around in his martini he let out a breath, turning his eyes towards the window, biting his teeth together when he heard the _ping_ of the ring on his finger hitting his glass. “You, Simon, I’d hoped one of you would have lasted through immortality with me for at least a few decades more.”

Lights from the busy city danced along his floor, casting shadows and reflecting off priceless items displayed around the room. Magnus turned to stare at the box, at the dirt, his companion, and let out a long sigh of resignation before he got to his feet. “Well. I suppose I should have known better. But it still hurts all the same.”

He skirted around the armchair he’d just been lounging in and went over to a small display on an elegant wooden table, designed and hand-crafted in Taiwan. Framed pictures stood around the edges of it, the broken bottom half of an arrow and a dust-collecting steele lying between them. A familiar ache of loss surging through his chest, Magnus reached out and touched one of the framed pictures, eyes flickering over the features of the dark-haired boy in the photo. “How I loved you, Alexander.”

He swallowed, fingertip tracing the line of the boy’s face. Not for the first time, he wondered if, somewhere out there, there was some way of time travel. It would be selfish, wrong, but he would give everything he had to go back to those days. They had been messy, and uncertain, but never had he loved so much in all his years. And he didn’t just mean Alec. His eyes flickered to another picture, the one from the time everyone had gone out bowling. He and Alec were front and centre, with Simon pushing his way in, Clary and Izzy embraced and making faces, Jace poking Alec’s hair and smirking at the camera. He had loved them, too. Very much.

“It’s strange,” Magnus spoke, looking at the immortalised Isabelle in the frame. “I’ve had many friends, but never did I have a friend like you. And I feel I never shall again.”

He tilted his head, smiling softly at the memories he would never forget as irritating pop music from their time period played in the background. With his never-fading flourish he spun away from his small altar and returned to his arm-chair, raising an eyebrow once more at the box he’d been conversing with before. “I think about all of you very often. In fact I… hardly ever stop. According to my track record I should have forgotten you almost completely, but no. Instead I have to suffer with the perfectly in-tact memories.”

He shifted to be more comfortable, tossing back what remained of his liquor before teleporting the glass back to the kitchen counter. Absently he glanced about his home, wondering if he’d ever work up the guts to redecorate. Normally he’d be on it as soon as he moved towns, but for the past one-hundred and fifteen years his living quarters had all looked eerily similar to that of his Brooklyn loft. He couldn’t get himself to let go, and it hurt deeper than any knife ever could.

He began twisting his wedding ring around on his finger, feeling burning at the backs of his eyes. But he wouldn’t cry, he refused, his makeup was too exquisite to ruin with tears. So instead he whispered, a weak and feeble sound. “Do you think I’ll ever move on, Rafi?" 

The only answer he received was the busy traffic sounds of Tokyo’s streets, and Ke$ha playing from the library. The warlock stood once more, going to the doors of the balcony and tossing them both open at once. As he sauntered out he thought about the scenery in New York, so different from here, and yet he hadn’t found the strength to return and see it again. As he leaned against the railing he felt a phantom hand on his shoulder and he closed his eyes, holding his breath. If a tear did slip, falling to the ground stories below, he decided to ignore it.

“Dammit, Alec, why can’t I just…” He swallowed before wetting his lips, slowly opening his eyes once more. He reached to touch the hand he felt gently caressing his neck, but there was nothing truly there. As always. He knew why he ‘couldn’t just’, and it made him want to scream. “Of course. It’s because you were more than a simple love.”

Magnus had lived long enough to fall in love, to love, to lose that love, to fall out of love, and to love long after love had fallen to their grave. But what Alexander Lightwood had been during their fleeting lifetime together was even stronger than love, than being in love. Alec had been his first, his last, and his only soulmate.

“I hate you,” Magnus said quietly into the air, arms folded on the banister as his eyes scanned the lit-up night. “Or at least I wish I could.”

He hung his head, suddenly feeling inexplicably tired, as if he hadn’t slept in a century. “You’ve broken my heart.”

After a moment he looked over his shoulder, at the box, an empty smirk playing on his lips. “You as well, Rafi. You, and Simon.”

He turned back to the Tokyo skyline, nodding some to himself. “And Clary… Isabelle… Jace… Jocelyn…”

He listened to the beeping horns and speaking billboard advertisements, staring blankly at absolutely nothing. Without thinking he started using a healing spell on himself, but it did nothing to fix the ache in his chest. He gave up, folding his arms in front of himself on the railing once again. “I’ve got many years ahead of me. I suppose I have to start living with myself.”

With a snap of his fingers he had a new liquor in hand, but rather than his usual cocktail, he was holding a shot glass of straight whiskey. He tossed it down his throat without a reaction, refilling it again and again and again until he’d drank so much he could barely think. Which was the point. Stumbling, he managed to find his way to his bed, which always felt too empty. Somewhere between here and there he’d scooped up all the items from his altar, placing them as well as Raphael’s box on the side of the bed Alec once slept on.

With a grunt Magnus slipped under the blankets, reaching out his fingers for the snapped arrow and holding it to his chest like a dying man would a flower. His brain was more alcohol than it was control, so although it annoyed him, he decided that he wasn’t accountable for the tears seeping out of his closed eyes.

“I want to forget…” His thumb stroked over the shaft of the arrow, and a remorseful smile shaped his expression. “No… I don’t.”

The warlock didn’t cry much more after that, but rather stared at the ceiling as he caressed the broken weapon in his hand as he once would have his Alec’s skin. City clamour and catchy music (with the assistance of liquor) drowned out his shaky breaths, and he remained there thinking about how cold his bedroom was. No price he had ever named for his services could compare to the price of immortality. “Goodnight, Alexander…”

As he began slipping away into another night of restless sleep, still clutching one of the few pieces he had left of his beloved Shadowhunter, his mind conjured up the sound of Alec laughing. Magnus smiled, as slight as it were. In his head he could hear him, could imagine how Alec’s breath against his ear as they used to fall asleep in one another’s arms felt. _I love you_. He mouthed the words in return to the Lightwood boy’s ghost, but nothing came from his lips.

For the very first time in his existence— He rolled over on his side, reaching out with the arrow still in his hand to also touch the pile of memories of everyone else— Magnus Bane wished that he had been born nothing more than a simple mundane. At least, when they died, their body knew to die with them.


End file.
